Friday, March 6, 2009

Electric bicycle concept using recycled materials

I have been a bicycle rider for about 40 years and always liked the idea of adding some type of power assist, like a motor. I did in fact put a 3 HP Briggs gasoline engine on my mountain bike a few years ago but it was not an enjoyable ride........there was a lot of vibration, it was heavy and wanted to go way too fast due to improper ratios. In fact, the way it was geared, I calculated it would go over 70 MPH with the engine running maxed at 3600 rpm. Whew!

With traces of my skin on the road and this idea behind me, I am now thinking about building an electric motor powered bike-one with the motor built into the existing wheels using magnets removed from computer hard drives. Why hard drive magnets? Because they are VERY strong. Plus, they are shaped in a way that they could easily be mounted on the spokes near the rim, for max torque. Then mount a wire wound 'stator' on the bike frame so that the magnets pass closely by it. Passing current through the coil at the correct interval (pulse) would push each magnet past it, making the wheel an electric motor.......

It may take several of the coils correctly positioned and pulsed strategically, but it looks to me like this would make a very inexpensive, efficient electric bicycle. Maybe the coils used could come from recycled items such as solenoids or transformers.



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